Spring 2025 Submission Guidelines
Violet Margin is a literary journal that publishes all genres of creative writing, photography and visual art from undergraduate students across the country.
****Submission window: January 24, 2025-February 16, 2025****
Spring 2025 Theme: Community, Struggle, and Hope
How do we reject isolation and support each other? How can we have hope for our future selves? How do we face our difficult realities? How can our magazine be a space of safety and creativity for writers?
We want to read what you have to say on any of these topics!
In the wake of challenging global issues such as climate change, AI depleting our water supply, the California wildfires, and devastation in Gaza, Congo, and Sudan, our Spring 2025 issue seeks work about community. We want writing that doesn’t avoid complex questions, that expresses our current reality with honesty, that breaks boundaries and goes “beyond the margins.”
We also seek work that explores the positive aspects of how we are surviving in this time. This can include stories of community strength, community care, methods of healing from personal and collective traumas, sources of comfort, and the ways we are rebuilding relationships, houses, and schools. Submissions can center around silliness, joy, and pleasure!
Violet Margin is committed to publishing diverse voices and aims to focus on those that have, throughout history, been marginalized and excluded from the literary canon. We also especially encourage beginning writers and unpublished writers to submit. We recognize the weight of handling vulnerable new writing and aim to treat all writers with respect and care.
AI policy: Violet Margin does not accept work generated using AI. This is due to concerns around harmful biases in AI, the mass theft of existing content, and AI’s deleterious impact on the environment.
FOR PROSE: We accept one work of prose per person. Short stories, creative nonfiction, essays, and flash fiction all fall under this category. Submissions can range anywhere from 250-2000 words. You may submit two prose works if they are each under 500 words.
FOR POETRY: For Spring 2025 submissions we are accepting up to three poems per person.
FOR VISUAL MEDIA: You may submit up to five pieces of visual art or photography.
All submissions must be emailed to violetmargin.edu. Put the genre of the submissions in the subject line.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Email your submission as an email attachment to: violetmargin@uis.edu Put your genre and last name in the subject line of the email. For example: Prose Cass
All written submissions must be in .docx. Font type and size is up to you. All visual submissions must be in .png format.
**If submitting multiple literary works, put them all in the same Word document.**
Include your submission as an attachment and address it to violetmargin@uis.edu
Make sure the email you are submitting with is a university email.
In the body of the email, please include a cover letter in the body of the email with the name of your institution, and a short bio ( no more than 100 words) that includes any relevant educational or publishing experience you have. This can also include information related to the submission’s context or some your relevant personal interests.
We strongly encourage new, unpublished writers to submit!
Here is a sample bio:
Jessica Writer studies environmental science at Cheesepuff University where she also organizes a horror book club. This is her first publication.
Simultaneous submissions, or submissions sent to multiple magazines at the same time, are allowed. However, once accepted by Violet Margin we expect other submissions to be pulled. If the work is accepted elsewhere, please notify us as soon as possible via email at violetmargin@uis.edu
Writers may use a pseudonym if they desire.
Violet Margin 